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Friday, December 25, 2009

First of all, thanks to Hans Rosling, for giving some fantastic talks, which inspired this post.

Second, I am a complete noob in writing such stuff. So you are requested to criticize, and leave a comment.

And finally, before you move on, pause, and ask yourself:

1. How do you define developing countries?

2. How do you define developed countries (do I mean western world)?

Well, the most simple definition that anyone could give is:

1. Developing world - Short life, large family

2. Developed world - Long life, small family

But hey, how can we accept this?? The problem with us is, that the world view we have today corresponds to the years our textbooks were first published and the teachers who teach us those textbooks were born (same applies to our parents also).

Today, in the new Copenhagen-economy, where no one is pressurized, we must stop talking about the developing world. We must realize that the western world will not continue to dominate forever.

However, we must thank the US taxpayers, who participated in "The Demographic Health Survey", for 25 years, and we have some terrific dataset which will change your mindset. And thanks to US Govt. for providing this data for free, so that we have a grasp of whats happening in the world.

Now, all that data is converted into a number-crunching software at "gapminder.com". For example, look at the figure below.

We see the stats about CO2 emission per person compared with the income per person, from the year 1961 to 2005. Lets compare India and USA. The size of the circle represents the population (obvious), and each circle represents one country. What you will notice is, that from the 1961, the income per person for both India and the USA is constantly growing. But, there is a increase in CO2 emissions in the USA, thanks to their lifestyle.

Now, why USA can't come up with a plan to cut CO2 emissions on a large scale, even when they have got the money, and they have significantly less population, whereas the plans will be much tougher to implement in countries like India, where people are still fighting for bare necessaries.

Where countries like India and China lag is in the inequalities in their own states. Compare Gujarat and Bihar, and you know what I mean.

But, an astonishing fact is that Washington D.C is much richer than Kerala, but not as healthier(another thanks to the health policies of the Kerala Govt.).

Uncle Sam must realize that what Thomas L. Friedman called "The Flat World", is a reality. And that the Asia, specifically India and China, posses a great capacity for development.

Post liberalization, the world has seen a gradual shift of power towards Asia, which will become more significant as time passes by. No one wants another Lehman Bros. No one wants another Flopenhagen.

Let's modify our initial mindset of the world (the developed and the developing).

The new mindset is: "The World Is Converging", but:

1.Not the bottom billion (Africa is still there where it was 50 years ago).

2.Not sustainable (recession still not over completely. Bull is unpredictable).

3.Not around one superpower.

In the new world, each country is important, and there isn't any single country which can progress without global support.